Conflagration
by thestylus01
Summary: Jenny has had a rough day. Jethro has suggestions about how she should go about relaxing.
1. Chapter 1

Conflagration

by the stylus

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A/N: A little, tiny thing for E, who made a pitiful face and puppy-dog eyes and asked for Jibbs smut. Probably not entirely serious, but entirely likely to change ratings. If it took place in a universe we knew, it would probably be in s3.  


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Disclaimer: All characters are the properties of their creators. The author makes no profit from this work.

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Jenny toed off her shoes the minute she stepped through the door. That left her standing flat-footed in the soaked hose that seemed to have wicked muddy water halfway up her calves. She hung up her dripping coat and padded straight into the study, thinking only about bourbon and finally being warm. She ignored the slight squelching sound her stockings made on the hardwood floor.

There had been longer days in her life as a member NCIS. Harder days. Days in the field, waiting for hours in uncomfortable conditions; days she had killed, or nearly been killed; days in MTAC that became nights and then days again while she processed information and coordinated teams and waited, endlessly. But there had never, she would swear to it, been a day as enervating, as thoroughly aggravating and demeaning, as the one she had just finished—14 hours after she had started it. And if she ever had to go back in front of the House Budget Committee—and then to dinner and then to a reception with the House Budget Committee and its staff—she was absolutely going to refuse to do it unarmed.

She wasn't sure what the worst part had been. Objectively, it had probably been the first few hours of the hearing, when a few Republicans from the heartland had decided to attack her as a representative of wasteful government spending while a couple of northeastern Democrats had decided to look tough on national security by finding that NCIS's recent counter-terrorism successes were too few too late. In reality, she'd only half-listened while cursing the extended election season of modern politics. Much worse had come later, when she'd essentially had to prostrate herself in front of the blowhards to get the new machines Abby needed and the money to finally build some proper training facilities. But really, the nadir of the day had been the dinner and after, when those same politicians had unsubtly peered at her ring finger and, finding it bare, had felt free to treat her as proprietarily as they did their budget line-items. Not to mention the drenching a passing sedan had given her as she stepped into the car to come home. She shivered with the memory and absently peeled her clinging skirt away from her leg.

The cut-glass decanter made a satisfactorily solid sound against the lip of the glass as she poured herself a generous measure of bourbon. At least the rain made a nice backdrop for the evening she had planned of a warm bath and some intense self-pity.

She headed up the stairs, shucking off her clothes just inside the bedroom door and making a mental note to have Noemi take the suit to be cleaned tomorrow. Wrapped in a bathrobe and with the sound of the water filling the tub in the background, she could already feel some of the strain of the day easing.

So when the phone rang, she seriously considered ignoring it. Went so far as to put one foot in the tub before realizing, with a sigh, that she couldn't in good conscience not answer. They'd just call her cell next, anyway.

"Hello?"

"Jen?"

"Jethro. Unless you or NCIS headquarters are on fire, I don't want to hear about it tonight."

"Rough day on the Hill?"

"I'm serious. Are you actually being licked by flames?"

"I can think of things I'd rather be licked by."

"Jethro," she protested, but she was laughing now.

"I just called to tell you we wrapped up the Guzman case. Report's on your desk."

"Thanks. Anything else?"

"Nah." He paused. "You running a bath? That always helped you relax."

She smiled a little sadly at the memories. "Yeah."

"Good. Have some bourbon."

"Aye aye, sir."

"Kay. I'll let you go then. G'night, Jenny." If she didn't know better, she'd say he was reluctant to hang up. But she rejected the thought—he wasn't the sentimental sort and they didn't have that sort of relationship anymore.

"Night, Jethro." She put the phone back into its cradle gently and headed back into the steaming bathroom.

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End 1


	2. Chapter 2

Conflagration

pt. 2

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Twenty minutes later the hot water and the bourbon were combining to work their magic. She could feel the tension leaching from her muscles and concentrated hard on thinking about absolutely nothing.

She was, in fact, extremely relaxed. So when the door to her bathroom suddenly opened, she thought it to her credit that she did not squeal, scream, or even squeak. She did, however, consider hurling her empty glass at the intruder.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She saw his eyes flick along her body, but she refused to reach for a towel or her bathrobe. Refused even to cross her arms over her chest. It was her bathroom and if he was going to barge in uninvited, she absolutely refused to be embarrassed.

He was dripping on the tile—he never could be bothered with an umbrella. She tried to ignore the way his damp shirt clung to his chest. Apparently he couldn't be bothered with a jacket in November, either.

"Well, I got to thinking."

"I'm appropriately terrified."

"See, I remembered about the bath thing that helped you relax. And the bourbon."

"Mmhmm."

"And then I remembered that sometimes those didn't work."

"Oh, really?"

He nodded. "So I figured that the best thing to do—in the best interest of the agency, you understand—would be the one thing that never failed."

"And what was that?"

"This." With no more pretense, he peeled his shirt off. Then he moved his hands to the buckle of his belt and undid it slowly, drawing out the moment, letting her watch. After the belt was undone, he slid his jeans down, taking his underwear with them. Deliberately. Patiently. Knowing it would drive her crazy.

He was already more than half-hard and they hadn't even touched yet. She drug her eyes back to his face, seeing the heat that suffused her body reflected in his gaze. It was hard to remember how cold she'd been just an hour ago. He moved steadily toward the tub, and she leaned up as he climbed in to settle behind her then pulled her into him, his erection against her back and his hands immediately covering her breasts. She moaned; the water lapped slightly over the edge. He brought his mouth down on her neck and shoulders as his fingers teased her nipples, and she squirmed back against him, feeling him twitch at the friction. More water sloshed over.

"I think we're going to flood my bathroom."

"So?" he said, never raising his mouth from her skin.

"Good point." One of his hands drifted lower and she dropped her head back onto his shoulder. The anticipation was almost unbearable as he teased her, tracing his fingers up her thigh and across her belly, stoking the fire. With her head back, he had access to more of her throat, and he scraped his teeth down her carotid artery, then followed the same path with his tongue. Meanwhile, his other hand cupped her breast, his thumb sweeping back and forth across the pebbled nipple.

"Jethro," she growled, "your teasing is _not_ helping me relax."

"Sorry," he said, sounding not at all contrite. But her words did have the desired effect as, without warning, he plunged two fingers into her. This time the surprise did make her cry out and arch her body up.

"God."

"Just me." He set up a steady rhythm with his two fingers, his thumb pressing on her clit as she rocked against his hand. It didn't take long before she could feel her orgasm beginning to build, the heat of the bathroom and the feeling of him surrounding her helping to accelerate the process. He must have felt it, too, because he slowed his motion. She had been touching the parts of him she could reach, and he captured one of her hands, bringing it to his mouth to suck on the tender skin at the inside of her wrist. She hovered on the edge, her hips moving to seek the friction of his hand while he provided just too little contact to allow her release.

"I wanted to shoot many senators today. Don't make me shoot you instead." The breathy tone of her voice made the words lose some of their threat, and she felt rather than saw him smile.

"I'm not here for that sort of fire. No matter how friendly," he parried quietly. Then he thrust his fingers home and brought his other hand down to help send her over the edge. She stiffened, grasping his thigh hard enough to leave bruises as the wave swept over her, melting her synapses and setting all of her nerve endings alight. She gasped for air as he continued his maddening assault, wringing the sensation from her until she reached down and grabbed his hand in a vice-like grip.

"God," she said again, sagging back against him. Her chest was heaving with the effort of pulling air into her lungs. Though from the way his gaze was directed and the feel of his erection in her lower back, that wasn't necessarily an unwelcome development. His free hand crept up, gentle fingers tracing her ribs, the underside of her breasts.

She made the mistake of glancing at the floor, now covered by a thin layer of standing water. Well, it was tile; it would dry. But it probably wouldn't be wise to test it. She stood up abruptly, the water streaming off of her and a flush coloring her entire body.

"Bed," she instructed, holding out a hand to him. He quirked a grin at her and complied, reaching out to pull himself up. She ran a towel over him, and though the touch was too quick to do much drying, it did hit all the right spots. He took the towel from her and returned the favor. Then she led him into the bedroom, flinging back the covers as he pushed her, a little inartfully, onto the bed.

She rolled over to find him smirking, an expression she wiped off his face by reaching down and encircling his length, moving her hand in a rhythm calculated to be too slow and too soft to do anything but taunt. He kissed her hard, biting her lower lip as she forced her tongue between his teeth and he hooked a leg over her hips. The angle made her grip awkward, but it allowed her to shift her hips so that the tip of his shaft brushed against the smooth skin of her inner thigh. He hissed softly and she pressed the advantage, rolling them over so she straddled him and grinding her hips into his.

In retaliation, he raised himself up with his arms and nipped at her breasts. But the position was a strain, and she used her forearm to knock his elbow out, flopping him back down onto the bed. He countered by running his thumbs slowly up her inner thighs and brushing lightly over her center. Which also let him touch himself in passing and was therefore unacceptable. She reached down and took him in hand, crowding his touch out before lowering herself slowly down onto him.

It had been awhile for them both and she went slow, mindful of the irony that she needed to be relaxed for this part. But soon enough she had settled all the way onto him and his hips were twitching slightly under her. She leaned forward and started to rock, her breasts brushing against his chest as he tangled a hand in her hair. Their mouths met again, tongues dueling, but the kiss made it hard to maintain contact and so she settled back, letting him watch her move over him. Letting him look his fill.

It wasn't a surprise when he looped one of his legs out and used it to flip them over. He raised himself over her and she hooked her ankles around his back, enjoying the new angle. Her hands explored the skin of his back while he bent to suckle her clavicle.

Whatever the thing that had burned between them six years ago, it hadn't been extinguished. Their bodies still remembered. She ran her hands down his sweat-slick sides, feeling the tell-tale signs that he was getting close, allowing herself—if only this once—to remember how well she knew him. She was so caught up in the mixture of past and present that when he grabbed her hips, pulling her into him in a way that brought their lower bodies closer, she was totally unprepared for the sensation that broke over her. She moaned in pleasure as he drove himself deeply into her, allowing the fluttering of her muscles to drag him over the edge. He buried his head in the crook of her neck, raggedly breathing her name.

When their heartbeats had both descended from hummingbird range, he raised himself up and pushed a lock of hair out of her face. "More relaxed now?"

She studied him: the infuriating half-grin; the darkened, amused eyes; the little lines smoothed out as he watched her. "Somewhat," she conceded. "But then, maybe it's just the bourbon taking effect."

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Fin

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A/N: I hope you weren't looking for plot. No plot to see here.


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